The motherboard is based on Intel Z87 but powered with a lot of additional controllers. Some features of Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 are typical for high-end platforms and some are unique. The board has many advantages and a very few disadvantages.

Exclusive Software

Like many other mainboard makers, Gigabyte regularly revises its exclusive software bundle, adding new and removing old utilities. Gigabyte mainboards with Intel's 8 series chipsets come with an updated bundle, too. You can download the individual utilities separately but you have to install the APP Center application to launch and update them. Unfortunately, Gigabyte utilities still do not ask you for the installation path but always install somewhere on the system disk. APP Center appears as a gears icon in the bottom right of the screen (it is the leftmost icon in the picture).

The APP Center shell is installed together with the Live Update utility by default. As you install more Gigabyte utilities, they will fill the list that opens on your clicking the APP Center icon.

The gear icon in the top right of the program window opens its settings. You can choose the interface language and color, specify the update period, allow APP Center to start with the OS. The program interface is green by default for the G1-Killer series but you can choose orange (as for overclocker-friendly models) or blue (as for ordinary mainboards). The application launch icon for APP Center is created only on the Windows 8 start screen by default. So if you've closed the utility and work in the Desktop mode, you'll have to switch to the Start Screen mode to restart it.

EasyTune goes first on the list of utilities available via APP Center. It is a familiar name but we were quite unprepared to see the huge new program window – 1600x900 pixels. The start screen reports system information (frequencies, memory, mainboard and CPU). In the bottom part there is a panel with information about the current clock rates, voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. The gigantic program window still turns out to be not large enough to avoid scrolling, though.

We’d prefer a more compact representation of information. The huge window with small islands of useful data doesn't look user-friendly at all. Unfortunately, it is impossible to change its size. EasyTune won't launch at all if your display resolution is lower than 1280x720 pixels.

The EasyTune settings only let you choose whether to apply your overclocking and fan speed adjustments after restarting.

EasyTune’s Smart Quick Boost window lets you overclock the CPU to predefined levels or switch it to a power-saving mode.

If you choose Advanced, you will be able to set up clock rates, frequency multipliers and voltages manually. This screen contains scrollbars too, which is quite nonsensical for such a huge program window.

The Smart Fan window is where you can calibrate your fans and choose a regulation mode for them.

In the Advanced mode you can set up the mainboard’s seven 4-pin fan connectors individually. Like in the BIOS, the last two system fans are regulated together. You can move the key values in the chart with your mouse and switch between the fans using the dots above the chart. We couldn’t switch to the RPM Fixed Mode tab, though.